Along with the weather, the stock market also has been hot. We like hot.

As I write this on July 5, the broad market, as measured by the Wilshire 5000 Index of most stocks traded, is up 10.43 percent, which is close to its high in the first quarter of 2012. We made ground, lost it, and have been fighting to regain it.

The world economic issues are not helping us. Every time we turn around it seems another country is in trouble.

Somebody said that we, the United States, are the cleanest of the dirty clothes. We are dirty, but of all the others, we are the cleanest. Simply put, we have issues in our country but in comparison to many others we don’t look so dirty.

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In looking at the popular averages, again through July 4, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 5.9 percent, the Standard and Poor’s 500 is up 9.3 percent, and the Nasdaq Composite is up a whopping 14.2 percent.

As we have been chatting in the past few columns, the Dow really is not relevant these days because the 30 stocks in the average normally don’t tell you what is going on.

One thing I’ve noticed is that small and mid cap stocks are not significantly outperforming the Blue Chips, and most times when the markets are good, they will outperform.

The Dow Jones average of Mid Cap 400 is up 9.1 percent, and the Russell 2000 index of small companies is up 10.5.

These numbers are all sort of interesting because they should make us all happy around midpoint in any year. But I don’t hear many happy people out there.

As the market goes up, investors continue to take money out of the stock market and put it in bonds, which is unusual. Normally what we see, and you’ll understand this, is that as markets move higher, investors put more money into stocks, not less.

Someone is wrong. We’ll just have to wait and see who it is. I am a contrarian, but what do I know?

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The commodity markets are all over the place, but mostly down.

Normally, that is good for the public and bad for the producers. The DJ-UBS Commodity index is down about 1 percent on the year to date. Oil is down about 11 percent for the year or about 30 percent from the high.

Gasoline prices have not come down but those are based on the Brent price, which is another story.

Natural gas has moved up to the $2.88 price, but it is still down 3 percent for the year.

I remember not long ago when it was about $15. As I told you, I just bought a gas furnace for my house, switching from electric. Gas will never be this low again my wife tells me.

Gold is still up 3.5 percent for the year, but has seen a good bit of weakness from the high.

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In the stuff we eat, comparing prices from a year ago, beef is up, chicken is up, butter is down, cheese is down, milk, no surprise, is down, coffee is down almost 25 percent, eggs about even and hogs up slightly but squealing.

So you can see that it depends what you eat as to whether or not it is costing you more.

In the grain area, wheat is up a good bit, soybeans same story, oats up a little, cotton up a little and corn also up a little.

If you drink coffee, eat cheese and milk and eggs and nothing else you are fine.

Long term, in my view, I just cannot see food prices coming down. There is just simply too much demand around the world. People wanna eat.

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Stock markets around the world, what I call foreign markets, have been weak in the past year. They have been weaker than our markets.

If you look at the Dow Jones Global Index and exclude the U.S., the markets are up about 2.7 percent.

Historically, under most circumstances, the overall foreign markets usually outperform ours. The problems in Europe continue to put a drag on just about everywhere.

Germany, up 11 percent for the year is about the only good news in Europe. The Asia-Pacific rim continues to perform pretty well with Singapore up over 11 percent and India up 13 percent.

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My wife, just home from a scuba diving trip, tells me that I should take up the sport. Being under water might help me see things more clearly, she said.

I don’t think she’s funny.

Howie Pentony is a Saxonburg portfolio manager.